Claude Dornier was a man before his time. He born in German in 1884 and completed his education in 1907 at Munich's technical college. Three years later he began working at the Zeppelin airship factory. In 1911 he designed the first all-metal air plane, and Zeppelin permitted him to establish a separate division of the company, the Dornier aircraft works. It built both wooden and metal fighters for Germany in World War I.
